X John HOLMESDear Rob,Thank you for your nicely worded request forinformation concerning John but sadly we have notrace of him and to try and explain why.The Cheshire Constabulary was formed in April1857; there are many thousands of records, theseare held by the Cheshire Record Office, Chester. Ias a retired Police officer and voluntary PoliceMuseum Researcher am slowly extracting theserecords. Cheshire Police Officer Enrolment Recordsare held under Reference CJP7 Volumes 1-5. Thesefive volumes are very large and in poor condition,run from April 1857- 22 March 1913; theinformation regarding an officer's marriage isretained in CJP24/2, 1847-1966. And with regard tohis pension CJP20/2/1, 1857-1965. You will notethe emphasis is on April 1857; prior to this thecounty was loosely policed by parish constablesand we have no records of these early parishconstables. On the 3rd April 1857 there was a listprepared it contains about 15 names of officersthat served in the county prior to 1857,calculating the earliest name on this list heappears to have joined circa 1846, none of thoselisted were retained for the position of constablein the new Cheshire Constabulary in 1857, othersthat were retained but not recorded on this listhad their personal details recorded in Volume 1CJP7. Because his name does not appear on the listit tends to suggest that he came from LancashireConstabulary and that he had joined Cheshire andhad already left prior to the list being made in1857. We are also very fortunate to holdWarrington Borough Police records; whilstWarrington was then in Lancashire its Police Forcewas totally independent, these records start in1846 and have been searched and can safely saythat John does not appear in the WarringtonBorough Police records. So I can only assume thatwhen you say he was promoted to Sgt in theWarrington Division he must have actually servedoutside of Warrington. I assume that you havecontacted Lancashire Record Office who hold theLancashire Police Records for this period, if notthe records are searchable on the web and havinglooked myself there are several John Holmes, butsadly it does not give any great detail.If you also read the history of the CheshireConstabulary "To the Best of Our Skill andKnowledge" which is on the Museum Web Site, I feelcertain that a useful picture can be obtained oflife in the force at the time, my own opinion isthat discipline was draconian and those whostrayed outside the rule's were fined way abovewhat they earned or dismissed. Also therestrictions on their private life, an officer wasnot allowed to drink on or off duty even in hisown home. A short history of Warrington BoroughPolice is also on the site.I am truly sorry I have been unable to assist youwith your enquiry and wish you better fortune withLancashire Records Office If you have any furtherquestions please don't hesitate to contact me. JimTalbot. Trustee and Researcher, Cheshire Museumof Policing.